Providing laptops to Pasifika students Photo: Digitautua
A health and education researcher says the rising costs of food in New Zealand will impact the academic future of Pasifika.
A recent report as part of a longitudinal study of Pacific families found household food insecurity in the lead up to childbirth is associated with lower academic achievement at secondary school.
The study kicked off in the year 2000 with over 1400 mothers who had babies at Middlemore Hospital. Either the mother, father, or both, identified as having Pacific Island ethnicity.
A co-author of the Pacific Islands Families Study on Household Food Security during Pregnancy and Secondary School Educational Achievement, Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Emeritus Professor Elaine Rush said the team analysed academic records of over 600 of those babies who are now children.
Cost of living in NZ will affect Pasifika children's learning - researcher
They found those whose mothers said they were not well-nourished during pregnancy had lower academic achievement rates.
"It's not an individual's fault," Rush said.
"It's the environment that we have, and that environment is not going to get any better. Because our food supply very much depends on what we produce in New Zealand, and we're just not producing enough of the right foods and making them available to our own population."
In previously analysed data, it was found Pasifika boys from food-insecure homes during gestation had less skeletal muscle on arms and legs.
While girls from Pacific communities were twice as likely to be classified as obese.
This new report shows children whose mums do not get enough support in those early days were not only impacted by poorer health outcomes but education too.
Professor Rush said food poverty was a "systemic failure" in New Zealand.
"Aotearoa has more than enough capacity to feed the population," she said.
Professor Rush says food poverty is a "systemic failure" in New Zealand. Photo: Supplied
Her co-author Leon Lusitini, who is a senior research fellow at AUT's NZ Work Research Institute, said Pacific youth in New Zealand have lower levels of educational achievement than their European counterparts.
This was linked to socioeconomic disadvantages.
Lusitini said it was projected that in 20 years' time, almost one in five New Zealand children aged up to 14 years will be Pacific.
"Ensuring Pacific children have access to enough safe and nutritious food, especially during the first 1000 days of life, can help lay strong foundations for learning.
"Pacific parents want their children to achieve their full potential and succeed in life on equal terms with other New Zealanders," Lusitini said.
'Need to look after ourselves'
Professor Rush was not convinced Labour or National have what it takes to implement real change.
She labelled Labours GST policy "palliative".
"It's the whole of society, because we, the people vote and support future policy and tell governments what's important," Rush said.
She said whoever was in power after the election needed to work hard on reducing child poverty and find ways for the population to be fed better food.
"At the moment we export fat and protein in huge quantities," Rush said.
"And we import refined carbohydrate in large quantities, and we're not self-sufficient.
"We need to look after ourselves better first."